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Geraldo Rivera: Blacks, Latinos Benefit The Most From ‘Stop-and-Frisk’

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera said Friday that the New York Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy “protected” black and Latino New Yorkers the most, although these groups say they are unfairly targeted by the program.

Rivera told “Fox & Friends” that he’s happy an appeals court removed Judge Shira A. Scheindlin from the case on Thursday and struck down her ruling that the law violates the civil rights of minorities.

“This judge was an activist judge,” Rivera said. “As absolutely biased as you could possibly get.”

“New York is the safest big city on Earth,” he said. “Chicago has three and half times the homicide rate of New York. And Chicago has a very similar demographic.”

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"We are clearly doing the right thing in New York," he added.

About 90 percent of those New Yorkers stopped by the NYPD were minorites.

“And whose lives are being saved by Stop-and-Frisk? It is precisely the people — the black and Latino young person most susceptible to being killed by violence. These are the people being protected by Stop-and-Frisk.”

“Ray Kelly was right, Mayor Bloomberg was right,” he added. “Twenty years of Republican administrations in New York has done a good thing.”

“No research has ever proven the effectiveness of New York City’s stop-and-frisk regime, and the small number of arrests, summonses, and guns recovered demonstrates that the practice is ineffective,” writers the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Crime data also do not support the claim that New York City is safer because of the practice. While violent crimes fell 29 percent in New York City from 2001 to 2010, other large cities experienced larger violent crime declines without relying on stop and frisk abuses.”

Earlier this year, Gerald proposed expanding stop-and-frisk to other cities across the country, “not so much as gun control, but as criminal control.”

He asked Detroit’s acting police chief Chester Logan “Why not have them adopt this highly successful New York policy where you stop and frisk someone the cop thinks has a reasonable suspicion?”

“When we talk about stop-and-frisk, the main thing we need … you’ve got to have probable cause. And that’s what we preach here in Detroit. You’ve got to have probable cause,” Logan said.

Rivera asked about “gang-bangers” hanging out in a dark alley and “obviously any reasonable person would say they’re up to no good.”

“The main thing the officer has to show is a reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk that person,” he said. “We don’t want to randomly search people.”